(05 Nov 2020, 8:45 pm)OrangeArrow49 wrote The West End of Newcastle overall has more Stagecoach buses than anything else, but it's not a monopoly. Throckley/Denton Burn has Arriva/GNE/Stagecoach/GCT. In Gosforth it's mostly Arriva, with GNE and Stagecoach running less frequently. In Westerhope/Slatyford there is the GNE 74 and in the latter and Fenham there is the GCT 84A (and 84 in Benwell). Kingston Park has the 42A every hour (GNE Mon-Sat, GCT evenings and Sundays). Not a monopoly, just mostly Stagecoach. As someone who lives in the West End, I can absolutely say without hesitation Stagecoach is shit! GNE is by far the best, if less frequent. Saying the West End is a monopoly is rather sweeping!
Derwentside has Weardale, but not a comprehensive network, so is a GNE monopoly. SE Northumberland is only Arriva, I believe.
Stagecoach has plenty of service in Shields. GNE in North Tyneside is fine, besides the creation of GCT secured journeys.
I'm sorry but to say that the West End isn't a Monopoly because there's a few express services stopping at a few bus stops and a 2 hourly service running to Hexham via Matfen and small villages is really scraping the barrel not trying to be nasty. West Road, Fenham and Elswick are dominated by Stagecoach in an area which is high car usage, very high population density and there's no alternative at all ie the Metro in other areas. It's the place that everyone wants but no-one would dare go there. Gosforth / Kingston Park are northern Newcastle not the West End.
I never said South Shields etc are 'bad' it's just their weakest areas in terms of both investment and routes. South Shields and Hartlepool's depots have generally been getting edged towards closure for years now such as the E services (the profitable routes) being moved to Sunderland with the X63 and Hartlepool is pretty much an outstation to Stockton nowadays. Percy Main depot has by far the most services which are subsidised one way or another, hasn't had a new bus (which they still have) since 2013 and has had a cut to every service within the last year (1, 309, 310 cut from every 15 mins to 20 mins), (11, 19 no Evening / Sunday services), (40/41, 42 butchered in half or half the route scrapped) and also has the oldest fleet out of all the GNE depots with nothing planned to change that by the sounds of it neither. If that's what competition brings then I'd prefer not to have it.